


Sleepless

by RoseMeister



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, listen sometimes you just gotta write soft wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseMeister/pseuds/RoseMeister
Summary: Mara can feel Sjur’s eyes on her, burning hot. Maybe it’s the connection all Awoken have, the one that is all the stronger for the two of them. Maybe it’s just Sjur’s lack of subtly, the cutting bluntness. Whichever it is, she stares, heavy, and Mara knows that Sjur knows that Mara knows what she’s doing. She ignores her for now, flips a page.





	Sleepless

Mara can feel Sjur’s eyes on her, burning hot. Maybe it’s the connection all Awoken have, the one that is all the stronger for the two of them. Maybe it’s just Sjur’s lack of subtly, the cutting bluntness. Whichever it is, she stares, heavy, and Mara knows that Sjur knows that Mara knows what she’s doing. She ignores her for now, flips a page.

“Mara…” Sjur says, soft, teasingly. A test of her resolve.

“Mhmm.” She replies, her voice neutral, her face blank. An easy game to win. She turns to a new page, rubs her thumb along the slight bit of water damage she finds there. She’s been working on this particular piece of paperwork for days, re-reading sections to the point that it is burnt into her mind, entire pages she could recite from memory. This page, for example, she remembers trying to explain to Sjur late at night, turning to find her lover fallen fast asleep on her shoulder. Sjur drools, which is charming, an amusing trait for their most revered warrior, but at least a little irritating when she does so on Mara’s things.

“How long have you been reading?”

“Since dawn.” Strange word that. Dawn. Another remnant of the life before, the more than half forgotten time when they had all been human, illiterate to the secrets of space. But words remain, even if the dawn is now a constant time that means little.

And Mara is lying, secretly. She was up much earlier than that. But this all twists back into their private game, and she knows well that Sjur knows that too. Sjur was the one to delay her for a good hour when she tried to leave their bed this morning. It’s hard to run away into the cold dusty embrace of old books when your lover has her arms wrapped around you, tired grumbles echoing into your ears. Mara might be a tactician, but most days Sjur wins.

Mara still doesn’t look up from her pages. She doesn’t need to. Sjur takes up a space much bigger than her already impressive physique, and even blindfolded Mara would know how to find her. She can already picture the small flitting smile, a thought almost distracting enough to make her concede, to put all this aside and just burn the rest of the day away kissing her. Responsibilities be damned.

She can hear Sjur stand, hear her heavy footsteps approach her. Heavy by choice. Mara has seen the grace she can spin herself into if she so desires, knows all too well that Sjur is only so loud when she feels like being heard. Here at least, in the quiet of their own company, she rarely bothers hiding. It almost makes Mara jealous.

She sits herself down next to Mara, shoulders touching, but finally silent. So yes. Maybe Mara has a victory within her grasp. But then again, it would hardly be a victory worth celebrating, and she puts the papers aside, leans against her. Centuries have a way of letting someone under your skin, their touch more familiar than your own, and the unspoken rumble of laughter that makes Sjur’s shoulders shake puts her at ease.

“I don’t do it to spite you.” Mara says. Quiet. Little more than an exhale of words, nothing that could be understood if Sjur were any more than a breath from her. Anything approaching honest truths tends to stick to her throat, refuse to let her speak them. Even now. Even with her.

“Yeah.” Sjur says. She isn’t quiet. Sjur doesn’t wear masks, doesn’t like hiding. Most days, Mara wishes fate had handed her a destiny that would let her do the same. “I know. But still. You do almost nothing but work. And think. And order. It’s enough to destroy most people. You have to remember that you are only…”

Only what, Mara wonders. Only Human? Because maybe humanity doesn’t quite mean what it did millennia ago, but sometimes the thing least human is that which once was.

“Only one person.” Sjur decides on finally.  “Don’t lose sight of Mara the woman while chasing after the ideal of Mara the Queen.”

Mara hums, something deep enough in her chest that the noise barely escapes. “But Mara the woman can’t protect everyone.”

“No one can.”

“Are you so sure? “

Sjur turns to her, her hands settling on Mara’s shoulders, and like a light switch is flicked behind her eyes, she breaks out in a smile. “Come with me.” She says, lifting herself just an inch up, waiting to see if Mara will follow her.

“Sjur.” Mara says, the warning tone in her voice drowned by affection. Sjur just smiles even broader, starts pulling her up with her.

“Ten minutes.” Sjur says. Mara isn’t exactly standing herself, but she lets Sjur move her. Spares her pride from the thought of explicitly conceding. “Spend just ten minutes with me, and I will let you go, work yourself to the bone to your hearts content. Yes?”

Mara lets herself smile. Just a little bit. Just enough for Sjur to notice. “You normally take much longer than that, my love.”

Sjur leans in to steal a kiss, and Mara is seconds off deepening it, letting herself slip into that mess of desires. Of pretending that they are normal, another couple slipping into a dark unnoticed corner, too hungry to wait even a handful of moments. But Sjur breaks it, laughing soft against her skin. “I will take anything you offer, you know. A minute, an hour, an afternoon. All of it is yours.”

If only. If only things could be easy, be simple. If only, if only, if only. Mara is struck by jealousy then, something bitter and cold and stabbing, and she wishes more than anything that they could just be people. Awoken to all the secrecy of the Light and the Dark, maybe. But people enough that they could sink into such temptations, and not risk their entire civilisation burning to ash without their careful attention. If only.

“I can only give so much.”

Another breath ghosts gently across her skin, a sigh this time. It twists her stomach, swirls the desire back up, but so too the sadness. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> i just rly like the sleepless lore entry & the canon fact that sjur drools lol
> 
> and listen mara's kinda hard to write but she's still so magnetising that i can't resist


End file.
